Religion

Animals kill each other, mostly for sustanance and to win the chance for mating, but sometimes over territorial disputes and even for fun. Yet as we can see from national geographic programs about wild beasts killings, man call these behaviours "the natural order of life". The concept of "morality" seems to be absent from the animal kingdom. Like eg a hyena kills the cub of a lioness, the stronger, more experienced alpha bear mauls the younger bear for infringing its harlem and space.. there seems to be no justice, right and wrong when it comes to animals.. that is one of the outtake of evolution, because "survival of the fittest" is the key drive for it. So i…

Jealousy, vain, selfishness, intimidation; are words that come to mind in my not very good English language knowledge; perhaps other words could choose more proper terms about the scenario behind the first 4 commandments. In proper English, does any one perceive better adjectives ?

Hi Guys, I wasn't sure where to put this question - here or in the brain science forum, sorry. Full disclosure, I'm a big fan of Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens, basically I'm very concerned about how religion is affecting the world. So here's the question: Given that religious discussion must be predicated on dogma, and that scientific discussion must be predicated on a lack of dogma, do people who are both religious and scientifically minded experience a sustained, cognitive load burden in day to day life as they switch back and forth from religious situations to "scientific" situations? (In this context, we could call jobs like programmer or…

Friends, Please go through the below logically explained content patiently before coming to any conclusions. BRAMHA Abstract: The creation is done by the BRAMHA (PARABRAMHA). The creation is the MAYA and the ATMAs bound together. The creation was planned completely before it was started. Key Words: Creation, PARABRAMHA, MAYA, ATMA, BRAMHA. Introduction: The knowledge of the very root(s) of this creation is not available to man till date and it looks impossible. But, understanding that is deeper than what conventional (materialistic) science can tell about the creation and the most knowable depth is presented below. Creation model is presented that sa…

I have noticed I tend to be prejudice against atheist and other religions. I've been working on both lately. To overcome my prejudice against I remembered Luke 10:25-37 The Parable of the Good Samaritan. It goes like this... 25 On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 26 “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?” 27 He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” 28 “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will liv…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropology_of_religion they say this about religion. They also present a definition on religion by Clifford Geertz but I am not clever enough to get that one So I hope somebody read up on Anthropology can confirm that the quote from year 2000 still holds or if the consensus has changed after 13 years? My own naive definition would be like this Religious traditions are expressions of a particular culture and each such culture have their own particular religions and gods. Features of a particular God is part of the way that culture made up the tradition. That means that if their God has features like being alive and real an…

Let me know what you guys think about the video (please be opened to the idea of a God)

In recent decades, many scientist including Paul Davies, Luke Barnes, Martin Rees, John Barrow, Frank Tipler, Don N. Page, John A. Wheeler, Roger Penrose, David Jonathan, Luboš Motl, Peter Woit, Arno Penzias, Dr Dennis Scania, Francis Collins, Karl W. Giberson, Peter Harrison, Andrei Linde, Hugh Ross, Frank A. Wilczek, Dr. David Deutsch, Michael Turner, Lee Smolin, George Ellis, Alan Sandage, George Greenstein, Robin Collins, Tony Rothman, Vera Kistiakowsky, Ed Harrison, John Gribbin have expressed there astonishment at the order of the universe. Embedded within the laws of physics are roughly 30 numbers—including the masses of the elementary particles and the strengt…

Embedded within the laws of physics are roughly 30 numbers—including the masses of the elementary particles and the strengths of the fundamental forces—that must be specified to describe the universe as we know it. (1)The fundamental numbers, and even the form of the apparent laws of nature are not demanded by logic or physical principle, meaning they could have taken on different values. (2)However the problem is that small changes in there relative strengths would have had devastating consequences for life. (3) By “fine-tuning” one does not mean “designed” but simply that the fundamental constants and quantities of nature fall into an exquisitely narrow range of val…

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/scienceonreligion/2013/07/religion-is-it-always-tribal/ He says that this is a very well known phenomena. Schools has such initiation rites and even at work you go through a kind of test period to become part of the work team. If you behave too annoying they tend to decide to force you to leave work. Religions too has these kind of tests of loyalty to stand the pain or else lose the gain of being member . One explanation is to ward of cheaters. The pain should be so intense that cheaters prefer to not even try. What is your view on this?

Seems there are many currect suggestion from science on how religion works. Some refer to religion as an adaptation. others say it is a byproduct. I know to little about such theorethical thinking. Has anybody listed all these suggestion and tried to evaluate them? Which theory seems to have best support from experiment or actual research on believers. One big problem to get reliable knowledge seems to be on one hand the ethics of experimenting it is morally wrong to make a test religion and start to convert people to it and if you tell them that it is a test religion that later will lose financial and staff support how many would still partiticipate and how…

I would like to explore enlightenment in the actual sense of the word I have studied many ancient religions and found this concept in one form or another. There aren't enough people who understand this idea so it is a fundamental shift brought about through intense meditation this state is attained by few even among the innitiated. It is a state in wich the mind becomes purified through mental dicipline in this heightened state of awareness were the brain can access more information faster and also certain powers are gained these vary depending on the individual . This is the missing ingriedient in most modern religions. It is not a phsycological state as some have th…

....it's actually 0.07%. That number is roughly 40 times lower than the percentage of atheists in the United States.

Michael Martin is one of the most famous atheist philosophers and he ahs written books and articles and texts on atheism. I refer now to his book "Atheism - a philosophical Justification" google books made it possible to do searches within it without owning it. I searched several keywords like " pretend faith in God" imaginary belief in God made up gods make believe gods and so on. Trying to find him making logic of made up gods. I failed the only similar text I found was an example he took from Louis P Pojman and his essay Faith Hope Doubt from a book on "Philosophy of Religion" Martin not impressed with Pojman assertion that a believer could base hi…

Many many believers assert that God has to be real or else their faith is doomed? Or have no value or is false or fake? But some believers say that God is a myth that refers to something that is real or what they hope to really exist out there. I am not a believer so I can only listen to their retelling of their experiences but have there been science study on how this work out in practice? I mean can one look with fMRI scanner and see what lights up in the true believer when they think God is really real. And if other areas light up in the God as myth believer thinking that God is a word referring beyond the concept to something not expressable? …

There is no end to the questions but in the bottom line, the question is: If there is a God and like it's written, God is love then why does God allow all the suffering in the world to exist? Why did God allow the Holocaust to happen or the Rwandan genocide or the civil unrest in Syria which killed thousands of people? And why are there so many poor people in the world? Why are there disasters like Hurricanes, Tornados, earthquakes, droughts, heat waves, famines, diseases and disabilities, road accidents, all of which claim thousands of lives in each year. My suspicion is that perhaps God is not so good (or maybe he is just corrupt) because if he was good then he woul…

I trust that it is most likely that all gods are fictional myths but that some myths has the claim that their God is real as one of the features of that particular God. Because some or many of the believers really need a real God. If their religious tradition would only have mythic gods then they would lose faith in it. God has to be real they say and why would they then not include a myth that say their God is real? Seems very likely to me. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mythology Fictions are not exactly myths because most fiction do admit it is fiction while myth often claim it has something real that it refers to metaphorically. Here is a…

This paradox has been on the run for quite some time.. nd by that i mean a couple centuries. One of the most fundamental statements to question the existence of God... it goes somewhat like this..... "Is god so almighty, that he can create a rock, that he himself cannot lift?" ... now here comes the paradox.. if god does create it and he CAN lift the rock.. that means it wasn't created according to the mentioned condition in the first place.. so he's not almighty.... then again if he does create such a rock.. nd he CAN'T lift it.. that means he's not Almighty nd allpowerfull as he lacks the strength to lift it... so basically a two way trap.. Now having said these... I a…

This is a Topic of unending debate, So as to attempt to stimulate our cognitive functions and erase boredom , This topic shall remain forever OPEN.

Is the belief of a god important? does it really matter if a person believes in a higher power or not? How does that belief impact our world? Why should people debate whether or not god exists, can't it be a simple case of 'live and let live'?

Hello everyone. I'd like to start off by saying that I'm agnostic. I'm looking for some reason to tip myself on either side of the line- I just need some kind of evidence. I thought reading God Delusion by Richard Dawkins would provide some insight to this, but I ended up not being able to finish it! The entire time he is just smashing religion left and right calling believers stupid. I'm not even religious and I find this offensive. I was hoping the book would say something along the lines of "This religion is false because of this reason.". Instead it was more like "This religion is stupid because anyone that believes this is stupid." What do you guys think?

I'm aware that this is an old thread, but in terms of understanding religion, I've enjoyed reading "The Case For God" by Karen Armstrong, In fact, based upon how clear and enjoyable this book was to read, I'd probably read anything by Karen Armstrong. it's very refreshing to dip into something so cogently expressed. .

When there's a split brain patient with one half Christian and the other half atheist, does only half of the soul go to heaven? Split brain bodies develop two entirely different personalities. In fact, it's hard to be around one and force yourself to think of it as containing only one person. Here's a very prominent neuroscientist describing a case which led to the initial question. It really makes me wonder how people can hold onto things like the belief in a unified immortal soul in the face of modern neuroscience.

First of all, let me say that I am a Christian. And I am conflicted. I cannot dismiss either my religion or my belief in science. In fact, I want to be a professor in a science. It is my belief that the physical rules that our universe abides by was created by God or a god, however you may see it. And I do not understand why the majority of scientists are atheists. Would not such a mathematically governed universe such as ours need a creator? Don't computers need programmers? Why did such influential men such as Issac Newton believe in a god whil today's scientists do not. Any input is welcome. I'm just a thirteen year old trying to understand the universe and why lif…

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